The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the dangers of over-relying on quantifiable measures and dismissing the importance of the immeasurable.
Charles Handy warns against the pitfalls of attempting to measure everything with ease, which often leads to a misunderstanding of significance. He outlines a progression of flawed reasoning that begins with quantifying what can be measured, continues with the dismissal of the unquantifiable, and culminates in the denial of the existence or importance of what cannot be easily measured. This highlights the need for a broader perspective on value and existence beyond mere numbers.
In practice
In a discussion about the limitations of metrics in education, this quote can illustrate the need to value qualitative experiences.
The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.
Why don't we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel'.
To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback, and to try again. It doesn't matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback, and new experiment is always there.
We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.
I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending.
Creativity needs a bit of untidiness. Make everything too neat and there is no room for experiment.
Though through all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he yet understands not the Dharma, as the spoon, the flavor of soup.
I have not conceived my mission to be that of a knight-errant wandering everywhere to deliver people from difficult situations. My humble occupation has been to show people how they can solve their own difficulties.
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.
We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.
The mind always hankers for more and more. If you have money, it hankers for more money; if you have prestige, it hankers for more prestige; if you have knowledge, it hankers for more knowledge. Mind lives in the 'more.'
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
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